Why is the animation genre looked down on so much?

[Gaius Marius]

I agree with this completely!

My take is that it is viewed as 'childish' here in that states and that animation is for kids. It is not 'high brow' enough to be considered film by the 'elite'. I love animation. Some great movies come out of animation (Pixar and Ghilbi, as you mentioned, are excellent examples). Heck, the reason why the Best Animated Feature award was created was to keep these 'kid stuff' films away from the 'adult stuff'. It's like the kids table of film, so that these don't get to the adult table.

Japan figured out that animation can be used to create excellent movies. However, I think we have too many cultural prejuduces to make this happen in the near future. I hope this will change eventually though....